Monday, February 9, 2009

Heaven Can Wait

(In India with Jeannine and Belinda, 2007)

My passage to India in two weeks has been postponed...for a very exciting reason. My travelling companion, Belinda, called me last week with the news that she had been picked to be on the new season of "Dancing With the Stars." I was sworn to secrecy, but the news was announced in the media today and she's on her way out to LA as I type this. We were going to travel to Rishikesh for a week and attend the International Yoga Festival there, but we can go another time. She's quite a serious practitioner of yoga, so I have no doubt she'll be able to keep up with all the intense dance training she's going to be doing.

(Belinda in Udaipur, 2007)

Belinda is one-of-a-kind. Strong, funny and gloriously eccentric, in the twelve years I've known her she has taught me more about being fearless and embracing opportunities than almost anyone I know. Together we have gone on fairy walks in Ireland, done headstands in the Himalayas, politely turned down horse meat in Kazakhstan, explored creepy cathedrals in the Languedoc, stayed up way too late in London, and meditated at dawn by the Ganges. Whatever she puts her mind to, she usually accomplishes and I have no doubt she will take on this next challenge as enthusiastically as she does all others, with her inimitable grace, style and good humor.

The last time we were in India together with our friend Jeannine, a blockbuster Bollywood dance movie had just opened called "Om Shanti Om." It was all anyone was talking about. We tried to see it several times but it was sold out all over the country, so we ended up settling for the soundtrack, which we played nonstop. "Om shanti om" means, "Peace within, peace without." So join me in sending her a blessing of om shanti shanti and a wealth of good karma...and be sure to vote for her!

I'm sorry, but.....uhm... isn't that Belinda Car..(something)??? She used to sing wayyyy back. I think i've even kissed a boy in a disco while her song was playing in the background. (Forgot the hit she had back then, it's on the tip of my tongue.....).

Anywayyyy......went to India as well two years ago (Allahabad), volunteerwork. Stayed there 5 weeks in the house of the doctor with four generations of familymembers. (They have become my "other" family. They even brought me by night train to Agra etc. etc.)

Beautiful country, delicious food, bright colors, loved the smell, but i literally got sick of how poor the people were. Still want to go back though.

Greetings! For the record, the medieval "Cathars" had no churches, creepy or otherwise. One of the characteristics that defined them against the Church of Rome was worship meetings in homes or the outdoors.

The term "Cathars" derives from the Greek word Katheroi and means "Pure Ones". They were a gnostic Christian sect that arose in the 11th century, an offshoot of a small surviving European gnostic community that emigrated to the Albigensian region in the south of France.The medieval Cathar movement flourished in the 12th century A.D. throughout Europe until its virtual extermination at the hands of the Inquisition in 1245.

There are an ever increasing number of historians and other academics engaged in serious Cathar studies. Interestingly, to date, the deeper they have dug, the more they have vindicated Cathar claims to represent a survival of the Earliest Christian Church.

Thank you!

Brad HoffstetterCommunications DivisionAssembly of good Christianshttp://www.cathar.net

Some scholarly references include:May we suggest the following scholarly sources:1. http://www.hereticswithoutborders.org/2. http://www.wmich.edu/medieval/congress/3. http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/sbook.html

I love you even more that you're friends with Belinda! I'll have to watch dancing with the stars this year, I've always heard it's a really fun show!I can't wait to hear all about your trip to India :-)

AIG Media Watch: Yes! You are right. I was speaking specifically of the cathedral I visited in Beziers, where on July 22, 1209 the Crusaders launched a revenge attack on the Cathar "stronghold" there and murdered, by some accounts, up to 20,000 people (with just over 200 of them estimated to be Cathars). The doors of Beziers Cathedral were broken in and innocent women and children were slaughtered.

It's quite a place. Mournful sighs seem to follow your echoing steps as you walk around the huge nave, and blood seems to be still be sticking to the stone walls. It's creepy.

Thats so great. They all make it look so easy but its really grueling. 8 hours of rehearsals a day but the reward is the most amazingly fit body. And possibly the "mirror ball trophy". You must go to the taping if you can- its quite a hoot.

I always enjoy your posting about your experiences in India! India is on my wishlist of travel destinations. I'll look forward to your new posting about your postponed trip, whenever it happens. My mother did yoga for years too.

We saw Belinda perform twice last year, once at The Winery in Saratoga and another time at The Independent (with the girls). Both times she was so charismatic and chatted with the audience. She still sounds wonderful too! My partner (www.lifeonthedot.blogspot.com) and I are both rooting for Belinda! Are you going attend a taping and support her—what fun? I know she's gonna kick ass!

That was Om Shanti Om, actually -- great movie, fun music. Shanti means peace, om means all sorts of things, but not specifically within or without. In the movie, the hero was named Om, and the heroine was named Shanti -- and Om comes back in a second life to find her again -- so Om Shanti Om -- get it? It is also the name of a really good, rollicking song from a seventies Bollywood movie, a kind of spoof of which opens the new movie. The photograph, with its faded colours, looks as if it could have been taken during my first trip to India, in the mid-70s -- !